When I was in Vietnam, I loved coming back to my room and telling about my day, what I had seen, tasted, heard, felt. It was important to me to get it down in words, to keep it near me, somehow. That's what writing does for me, I guess, chronicles the experience.
But now I have been home for almost a week and I haven't kept in touch, and I promised myself I would write something every day, or at least every two days. Not that I expect people out there to read it all, or any of it, but for the exercise in writing. To that goal, here I am, back again.
A couple of things I wanted to share about the trip. First, given that everyone in the world makes certain noises come out of their mouths, no matter what language they are speaking, it is no wonder that occasionally those sounds morph into phrases that sound familiar. In listening to Vietnamese for two weeks and understanding nothing, there were some phrases that I heard over and over. You will think I am crazy, but here are some I heard: "welcome back, guy" was the first one I noticed, so it must be some Vietnamese words that people say a lot that sounds like that phrase. The first time I heard it, I actually looked around for whoever was saying it. The second time I heard it I thought I was going nuts. The third time I finally figured out what was happening, and laughed at myself.
"I got the Velveeta" was another phrase I heard several times. I know they have no Velveeta there, so it's just syllables running together that sound like that, but it was rather strange. And "that morning jacket" was another one, and variations on that, like "he got that morning jacket" and "he ate that morning jacket". Seriously, a morning jacket, what could that be?
So I had fun with the language I couldn't understand. There were a lot of phrases with "tea leaves" as well, and "no way" was said quite often. "No way" makes sense, sound-wise. "Morning jacket" not so much.
Second, the food. People ask me what I ate and how it was. I ate several bowls of pho bo, their national dish (supposedly) of beef and noodle soup. Delicious and cheap. If you were brave and ate the street food, you can get a big bowl for $1.00 US. One dollar. I ate a lot of spring rolls, both fried and fresh, with pork, seafood or vegetables. Lots of salads of shredded vegetables or noodles with rice wine dressings, very tasty. One great dish of pasta, one delicious beef and fried noodles (more like stir-fry), two bad meals, one over-priced mediocre meal and the rest were good to very good. Great fruit and fruit juices, delicious and cheap beer. The breakfasts at the hotels were also very good, albeit strange sometimes. All in all, the food was quite fine.
Third, just a few words (probably redundant) about traveling alone. Over the past 10-15 years I have travelled rather extensively throughout Europe, through California and to the Midwest of America with my friend Tom. He was (and is) a great traveling companion and with few exceptions (sorry, Amsterdam) we always had fun and things went very smoothly. This trip to Vietnam was the first time I traveled to a totally foreign country by myself. I learned two very important lessons: 1) it is harder than I thought and 2) it is more liberating than I imagined.
Even planning a journey is easier with a second person, someone who can toss itineraries around and someone who has different ideas about where to go and what to see. When you are going to a brand new country, you just don't know how it's all going to work out. Doing it alone, you are never quite sure you are making the right decisions. Then when you are actually there, it is still difficult to figure out where to go, where to eat, which street to take, how to navigate the train station. Not to mention that there is no one (except the computer) to share all those strange experiences with as they happen. It's isolating in many ways.
But the good thing is that you don't have to take anyone else into consideration. I could wear the same shirt every day, I could look hot and sweaty and yucky, I could hide in my room for a day and not talk to anyone, no one cared! I wasn't ruining anyone else's day by getting hopelessly lost and wasting a lot of time finding my way back. If the museum was too crowded, I didn't have to be cranky standing in line, I could just walk away. I could get up early or sleep in late, no one was waiting on me.
I missed the laughing at stupid things (like getting lost) and the companionship, especially at dinner. I missed putting two heads together to figure out what to do and when. I missed having a pal around. But when I chose to go to Vietnam, one of the reasons I picked that country was because it was brand new and it was outside of my comfort zone, and because it was a solo journey. Would Tom have liked it? Yes. But I liked it just fine by myself, too. It's just a different way to travel and sometimes different is good.
I am going to figure out how to get some of the photos I took onto this blog. The computer I am using right now doesn't want to import the photos from the memory card. I probably need to use a different computer, so stay tuned for that. Thanks again to everyone who followed the blog. It was nice to know so many people were reading it. I want to single out Gil for responding so often to what I was reporting. He knows the country and gave me advice along the way. Thanks for that!
Til next time.....
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